Oh Shoot!

I’m gonna sound like an old fart when I say this, but I’ll say it anyway. Senior pictures sure aren’t like they used to be when I was young. When I was a senior, everybody went to the same photographer. You shot just enough photos to get a good portrait or two to hang on the wall and fulfill your yearbook requirements, paid your $100 and went home. If you were really ambitious you might bring a change of clothes. These days senior pictures tend to be much more elaborate with multiple outfits and fashion model type poses. They can be really fun, but the prices can run into the hundreds of dollars. By the way, I’m not a fan of the portraits in which the photographer gives the girls that pouty sultry look with suggestive poses. It just seems way too sexual for me and more of an imitation of what these kids see in magazines as opposed to a sincere attempt to capture the character of the person in the portrait. Of course, that’s what some kids want, but my preference is something less “tart”-ish. Hula rant done.

Even the simplest of senior portraits today is way more complex than those of my high school years. And in stumbling across my senior pictures this week I have to say that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Hello feathered bangs and Peter Pan collars! I’ve missed you so. Not.

Oh, and it’s worth noting that when this picture was taken I was terribly annoyed with my mother because she wouldn’t buy me for this shoot a cowboy hat and boots that were all the rage during those Urban Cowboy years. I have to admit, once AGAIN, she was right. Shoot.

Picture Perfect

Teen Angel and I have been taking her senior pictures off and on during the past few weeks. We took several of them over Labor Day weekend, but then I had to put them on hold while I did a bridal shoot and dealt with other odds and ends. She and I shot some more pictures this week, including some at the bakery where she works. I currently have about 300 photos to sort through, cull and edit, but so far my favorites are the ones we took at our last stop yesterday evening. It was the perfect setting, and the dwindling sunlight was at its absolute best when we arrived there.

For the past month I had searched for a junkyard where we could take the photos of Teen Angel in her prom dress. I liked the idea of surrounding her and that fancy dress with a bunch of junk. However, I had trouble finding a good old fashioned junkyard. It seems there's been a push in western Kentucky in the last few years to clean up the junkyards. I was about to give up when Hubby found the perfect spot just a couple of miles from our house. He has a buddy who has a radiator repair business, and next to Billy's business sits this old building with a rusted out car and a pile of junk. I scouted it out, deemed it perfect and screamed, "DON'T!" when Billy said he was about to tear down that old building and clean up that corner. He was more than happy to put off that chore until we shot our pictures, and I have to tell you I'm going to be a little sad to see it go when he finally gets around to knocking it down. It's just a perfect backdrop for portraits.

By the way, the rings she is wearing are her class ring, my class ring and Sissy's class ring.

Through The Lens

My daughter wonders why I’m so slow when taking her senior pictures. Until she is a mother she will never understand how long it takes to absorb the beauty and complexity of a creature you have birthed and raised and the bravery it takes to set that creature free as that time nears.